This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
1. Write your first draft, without pausing to edit, to the bitter end. Don’t stop, as I did, to let doubt creep in. You can tidy everything up at the end.
2. Try to write a little every day, even if it is too embarrassing to show anyone. You stretched your writer muscles and you are doing that which you love. Be proud, even of your most excruciating lines. You did it! You made something! I like to read gaffes in my MS as ‘outtakes’, often sharing them online with the #it’llbealrightontherewrite tag. It’s very funny and liberating sometimes.
3. Don’t compare yourself to other writers. You aren’t them; you can’t be them. You are you. And if every writer wrote in the same way nothing new would ever be discovered out there. Be true to your own style.
4. I have said this lots but I hate the term ‘aspiring writer’. If you turn up each day to write – whether you are published or not – you are a writer. Start calling yourself one. So many people are afraid to give themselves that label like they didn’t earn it yet. Yes you did. Own it.
5. Try very hard not to take poor reviews personally. This is the hardest part, I think – rejection of your work and waiting for those awful reviews. It is terrifying putting your work – your heart – out there to be torn apart but take a moment to read reviews of some of the books you have loved. See a lot of one stars? People labelling your favourite authors ‘boring’? That’s because art is subjective and tastes are different. Don’t let it in.
The New Mrs D by Heather Hill is out now.